This I Owe to You
by RobanCrow
Summary: The conversation I wish Lucian could have had with Larks.


Larks stood by the great bay window on the landing between the third and fourth castle floors, and watched as a shadow swallowed the city of Radiata. Following Lucian's cryptic goodbye, the shadow cast light on Larks' ignorance. He had suspected plenty of Lucian, but not this-not the dragon with its abyssal wings and silver scales taking flight from the roof of Radiata Castle.

This whole time, they had played right into his hands. Puppets dancing to the whimsy of beings well above them. It had been Lucian who had directed Cairn to the water dragon, Lucian who had known a show of violence against the dwarves would draw out the earth dragon, Lucian who had known the wind dragon's nesting place, Lucian who had identified the fire dragon by the embers in his eyes. They had been deceived by the creatures who would destroy them all.

"Humanity... is powerless."

Larks' tongue flicked to wet his lips, and he drew breaths in short, shallow gasps. He felt faint. He leaned forward, against the windowpane, and watched until the dragon's aura had faded out of view. If this was to be the end of humanity, he wanted- no, needed to know the truth.

Larks pulled away and turned his back on the bay window. He staggered to the stairwell, gripping the railing and taking a deep breath before ascending. Rather than returning to his own chambers, he entered Lucian's.

The castle adviser had shelves of books, a desk and chair, inkpot and quill. It was an office, as the first room of Larks' own chambers was, however, Lucian did not have an adjoined bedroom. The room was much like the silver dragon himself, blinds drawn, lamps dim, and full of secrets.

Larks plucked a book from the shelf and flipped through it. The text appeared to have been penned by Lucian's own hand, and there were annotations Larks could read, but most of it was written in a language foreign to him.

He tried several more, and consistently could only make out the occasional annotation and the dates of the entries. Larks shelved his final attempt to find text he could read in the books, which he now assumed were journals, on Lucian's desk and slumped into the chair around the far end of it.

There was another book on the desk lying open to a blank page. Larks eyed the marks where ink had bled through from the page before. They did not appear to be the runes with which the rest of the texts had been written. He turned back the page to find the end of the runes and the beginning of plain text.

_Dear Larks, this I owe to you._

_No doubt by the time you read this you will have deduced who I am. I apologize for having been unable to tell you personally, but any complications would have compromised our success. Your cooperation and enthusiasm in the fight against my fellow dragons has been admirable. You and Jasne have done so much for me, and I cannot stress to you how much I appreciate your aid. I hope you will understand in time that any manipulation you and the knights under your command have suffered at my hands was necessary to save you all._

_There is but one task left to secure humanity's future. This I cannot entrust to the knights. I must destroy the vessel appointed to awaken Quasar, and I must see it through myself-for if this should fail, after all that we have done, nothing I could say or do would ever atone for how much human life would be lost. Have faith in me. Once I have destroyed the vessel and put Quasar to rest for eternity, the light elves will lose hope, and humanity will win the war. Please be strong; hold on just a little longer._

_I am not sure if you and I will see each other again, and I'll understand if you would prefer it that way, but know this: my allegiance was always with humanity._

_Sincerely,_  
_Lucian Hewitt_

* * *

Larks kept the book locked in his vanity table. Even several months later, Jasne often asking if Larks had seen or heard from Lucian, Larks hadn't the heart to share the letter-the truth about the castle adviser. It might have done him well to speak with Jasne of what he had learned, so that Jasne would stop asking, stop reminding him of it all. It left Larks ill at ease, without appetite and losing sleep.

And that was how, in the dead of night, he heard the door to his office creak open. He clutched his pillow and listened closely. The intruder walked purposefully to his bedroom door. It opened an inch, and Larks caught his breath, but then the door closed again. It did not sound, however, as though the intruder left his office.

Larks pulled his feet from beneath his comforter, and set them carefully on the carpet. He crept through the room, feeling about for his vanity table. He was groping for his glasses when the intruder lit the lamp in his office. He was neither trained nor prepared to defend himself, and there was nothing he wanted more than for this to be some terrible dream.

When after several minutes nothing stirred in his office, no shuffle of footfalls or rifling through paperwork, Larks steeled himself and stepped out. He winced at the sudden brightness.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

Larks spun to the source of the voice. Leaning against his desk was Lucian. Larks staggered back against his bedroom door.

"You," he gasped.

Lucian stood upright and stepped towards him.

"No," Larks said, "come any closer, and I'll call the guards."

Lucian stopped, his lips pursed, but he said nothing. Neither did Larks, caught up studying the former adviser. The stalemate must have dragged on too long as Lucian stepped forward again. Larks' lips parted, brimming with words unspoken. He sank back into his bedroom, and closed the door before Lucian could follow.

"You won't call the guards."

Larks stood against the door, quieting the tremor in his hands. "What makes you so sure?"

"You have questions," Lucian said. "If you raise alarm, you won't get answers."

"Who are you really?"

"I am Aphelion, the silver dragon."

"And Quasar?"

"The gold dragon."

"And the vessel?"

"Is dead," Lucian replied. "Is it safe to assume, then, that you found my letter?"

"I did," Larks confirmed. "Did you mean it?"

"Every word."

Larks took a deep breath and held it to a count of ten. After releasing it, he felt the door push back against him. He stepped away from it, and Lucian eased it open. Larks turned back to face the former adviser. Lucian didn't come any closer, staying on the office-side of the Larks' chambers.

"I am sorry for deceiving you, Larks," Lucian said. "I always wanted you to know, but I knew it would not be well-received, and I could not take any chances. If Quasar had awakened, so, too, would all the dragons the knights had slain be reborn, and they would have killed you all."

"Leona Weissheit from the Vareth Magic Institute has been helping me to translate your journals," Larks said. "If I understood correctly, killing us was _your_ task."

Lucian's tongue flicked between his lips. He averted his gaze, the color draining from his features. "It was."

"You've done it before," Larks added, stepping forward, "every thousand years. What was different this time?"

"How far have you managed to read?"

"It doesn't matter," Larks insisted, "I want to hear it from you."

"It's possible for any human to serve as a vessel for Quasar and I," Lucian said. "It's done through a process similar to the light elves' transpiritation ritual, except rather than our souls entering the host body, our souls absorb the host body. On the rare occasion that a light elf spirit is transpirited into a human body, successfully, that person becomes an ideal vessel because the light elf is far more familiar with the process and can serve as a guide."

"You mean like Ridley?"

"Yes, like Ridley."

"Does that mean she was Quasar's vessel?"

"Jasne would have slain me himself if he had known," Lucian admitted, offering a brief, rueful smile before dismissing the tangent. "The consciousness of the vessel's soul or souls, when they awaken Quasar or I, often lingers. Most souls will quiet over the centuries, but some souls never do."

Larks followed Lucian back into the office, where Lucian sank into the chair around the far end of Larks' desk. Larks slumped into his own chair.

"Quasar is the lucky one between us. It has never been his task to slay humanity. He has never known the turmoil of a vessel soul so strong that it watches and cries out against the fall of the city, the ruin of everything it has ever known. I have had enough. When Quasar awakens, when I must sleep, that dreadful time is nothing but nightmares.

"And then during the last time of imbalance, something remarkable happened. My vessel had in him both a human soul and a light elf soul-and neither wished to awaken me." Lucian held his head in his hands, his features ashen. "I hated them for it. For centuries, I had fled everything that was ever familiar to them, but they never quieted. Even now, I can still hear them. I knew then that I could never sleep again."

"So you began scheming against the other dragons," Larks deduced.

Lucian withdrew his head from his hands to offer Larks a smile. Larks leaned over his desk, elbows resting upon it, fingers interlocked and thumbs tapping his chin. Lucian leaned back.

"There's more," Larks stated.

Lucian's smile stretched thin. "My motives were selfish. I didn't care about humanity. I had no qualms with infiltrating the castle, earning your trust, biding my time and making you all do my bidding."

"But...?"

Lucian shook his head. "But you were already doing what I needed you to. You, bringing the people of the city together, and Jasne working towards positive relations with the fairy creatures. All you needed of me was reassurance. To see your efforts-and not only that, but your results-put the voices at ease. I thought I would make the most of the freedom it afforded me to study humanity, to understand and appreciate it as I never could from a distance, and..."

"And?"

"I may have come to appreciate it a little too much."

Larks grinned. It felt altogether inappropriate, but his efforts to suppress it only made it grow. "Too much?"

"I am beginning to feel as though I am human," Lucian muttered.

"Is that such a bad thing?"

Lucian studied Larks, tracing his features, appraising his expression. At this, Larks' humor faltered. He shifted uncomfortably beneath the former adviser's scrutiny.

"Lord Lucian?"

"No," Lucian conceded, his quaint smile returning, "I suppose it isn't."


End file.
